<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Patronage by Sixthlight</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27137722">Patronage</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sixthlight/pseuds/Sixthlight'>Sixthlight</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Old Guard (Movie 2020)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - D&amp;D, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Community: theoldguardkinkmeme, Ensemble Cast, M/M, Quest fic, Sex Magic</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 20:40:49</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,813</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27137722</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sixthlight/pseuds/Sixthlight</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The figure throws back his hood to reveal a human face, pale-skinned, with a beaky nose, wide grey-green eyes, and a curious smile. It is – almost – the face Yusuf has seen in his dreams, more times than he can count, ever since, young and reckless and far from home, he bargained his way into magical power. </p>
<p>(Or: what happens when you’re a Lawful Good Warlock and your Archfey patron gets annoyed that you multiclassed into Bard)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>40</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>498</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Patronage</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Yes, it's a D&amp;D AU. I've tried my hardest to make it accessible if you don't go there, but YMMV.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Quỳnh spots him first, through the fog; she has always had the best eyes of any of them.</p>
<p>“Up ahead,” she says, tapping Yusuf once on the upper arm. Everybody stops; Yusuf and Quỳnh fan out to either side of the rest of the party. They can do the most damage at range on single targets. Book’s more about swathes of destruction. Nile and Andromache do their best work face-to-face. They’ve been traveling together a while. They all know how this goes.</p>
<p>Yusuf follows Quỳnh’s pointing finger – held low – to the figure on the rock. Whoever it is, they aren’t trying to hide. They’re sitting casually, one leg dangling over the edge of the large boulder that looms over the path.</p>
<p>This is cold, foggy, mountainous country, the barely-there road climbing torturously up the mountainside; a far cry from the sunny port on a warm sea where they’d disembarked, only a week’s travel back towards the coast. That’s the kind of place Yusuf is comfortable, the kind of place that suits humans, but the journey they’re on hadn’t left them time to stop there.</p>
<p>The figure on the rock looks humanoid, but Yusuf can’t tell anything more than that. It’s wearing a cloak. Its booted feet look as though they are feet, with toes and nails, not anything else. Its face is hidden in shadow.</p>
<p>Yusuf curls his fingers, mentally preparing his simplest and most damaging cantrip. Out loud, he calls, in Common, “Hello there!”</p>
<p>“Hello,” says the figure, also in Common, but not in any accent common on this plane. It is immediately familiar. “You took longer than I thought you would.”</p>
<p>Yusuf does not need to look to know that Book has dropped back and will have one hand on his wand and the other on his spellbook; that Nile will have loosened her sword in its sheath; that Andy will be ready to unsling her axe, from where it is strapped to her back. He can see that Quỳnh already has an arrow in her hand, prepared to nock and shoot.</p>
<p>“We don’t mean to get off on the wrong foot,” Yusuf says, “but we’re on the trail of something unpleasant, and we need to know who you are.”</p>
<p>He knows. He knows. He is absolutely certain. But it’s also impossible, unsettling, out of keeping with the nature of the agreement he has with his patron.</p>
<p>“Show your face or our archer is going to put an arrow somewhere unpleasant but not fatal,” calls Andy, who has a much more pragmatic approach to dealing with strangers. This is why, by and large, Yusuf does the talking.</p>
<p>The figure on the rock laughs, warm and careless. Everybody tenses, because that’s never a good sign. Yusuf is torn between warring emotions.</p>
<p>He throws back his hood to reveal a human face, pale-skinned, with a beaky nose, wide grey-green eyes, and a curious smile. It is – almost – the face Yusuf has seen in his dreams, more times than he can count, ever since, young and reckless and far from home, he bargained his way into magical power.</p>
<p>“I wasn’t expecting to see you here,” Yusuf says, letting the cantrip on his tongue dissipate and spreading his hands wide, so the others know it too. “What brings you this far into the mountains?”</p>
<p>“It sounded like you could use some help,” Nicolò says, springing to the ground. It’s not <em>quite</em> what someone who truly owned the human face he wears would do. Under the cloak, he wears plain mail, and there is a longsword at his hip. “So I thought I would tag along.”</p>
<p>“This a friend of yours?” Nile asks. Yusuf looks to her; she’s let go of her sword, but still looks wary.</p>
<p>“An old acquaintance,” Yusuf says. “I trust him.”</p>
<p>That’s – skirting the edges of the truth, but Yusuf doesn’t really want to explain what’s going on here.</p>
<p>“Huh,” says Andy. “Well, we can always use another blade. As long as you’re not expecting a proportionate share of the reward.”</p>
<p>“You’re not getting paid,” says Nicolò. “You’re doing this as a favour for a desperate village, because you’re nice people.”</p>
<p>“No we’re not,” says Book.</p>
<p>“We try,” Nile corrects him immediately. “I guess you passed through just after us. How’d you get up ahead? This is a slow road, and even Quỳnh couldn’t move faster through these woods.”</p>
<p>“I travel quickly.” This is nothing like an explanation, and all of them know it.</p>
<p>“Stick with Yusuf,” Andy orders.</p>
<p>Nicolò smiles. “Of course.”</p>
<p>*</p>
<p>Yusuf can’t ask him any of the questions he so desperately wants to ask while they’re on the move; Nile and Book are sticking too close, while Andy and Quỳnh scout ahead.</p>
<p>“We didn’t get a good read on what it was from the village,” he says instead. “It’s beaten them down, not being safe and not being able to get any help. Did you do any better?”</p>
<p>“Some kind of beast,” Nicolò says at once. “With many heads. But I do not think we need to fear magic.”</p>
<p>“Well, that’s good to know,” says Book. “I hate fighting things that can cast spells.”</p>
<p>“Cramps your style, huh?” Yusuf says.</p>
<p>“Just gets boring, if I spend all my time stopping them.”</p>
<p>“Don’t knock it,” Nile says. “If you do that and we can get our weapons into them, it makes all the difference.” She eyes Nicolò’s sword. “You know what you’re doing with that?”</p>
<p>“Never carry a weapon you can’t use,” says Nicolò. Yusuf has never seen him with a sword. But then, Yusuf has only ever seen him in dreams, so who knows; maybe he carries it every day, in…wherever he spends his days.</p>
<p>“So you understand,” Nile says. “None of us will have time to save you, if you do something stupid, or pretend you can take care of yourself when you can’t. Not even Yusuf.”</p>
<p>Nicolò looks back at her very seriously. “I can take care of myself.”</p>
<p>“He can,” Yusuf agrees. He wonders if anyone else can feel the crackling aura of power; wonders what could be waiting for them, for Nicolò to be playing…whatever game he is playing.</p>
<p>*</p>
<p>They haven’t found their quarry by nightfall, and have to make camp. Book conjures up his invisible shield of protection for them to sleep in; he calls it a hut, but by Yusuf’s lights, a hut has walls and a roof, not a dome. At least it means that they can keep a light watch, one at a time. For a little while they kept none, but after the unpleasant incident when they woke up surrounded, Andy has always insisted on a watch, regardless.</p>
<p>Quỳnh gets a fire going with almost magical speed, though her own magic tends to other things. She and Andy take the first watch – they only sleep truly for a few hours a night. Yusuf is…not quite in the normal run of humans, some celestial ancestor coloring his existence, but that is not one of his gifts; he envies them a little.</p>
<p>Nicolò beds down next to him, wrapped only in his cloak. This is unsurprising. Somehow Yusuf manages to fall asleep anyway, and is woken in the early hours by a yawning Nile. “Your turn.”</p>
<p>Even Andy and Quỳnh are asleep, in the dead of the night. The fire has burned down to embers. The fog and cloud have cleared, and the stars are glorious, but it is <em>cold</em> in this winter forest. Yusuf rubs his arms.</p>
<p>He is startled when Nicolò’s arm drapes across his shoulders. “Mortals deal very badly with small changes in the weather, don’t they?”</p>
<p>“There will be ice on open water in the morning,” Yusuf says. “That’s not a <em>small</em> change.” He looks around to see if anybody is listening.</p>
<p>“They’re all asleep,” Nicolò says, “and there is nothing within a league that would harm you.”</p>
<p>“Do you want to tell me what we’re really in for, then?” Yusuf asks. “That you have bothered to appear to me in the flesh, after all these years.”</p>
<p>“Oh, exactly as I said. I wouldn’t mislead you about that. You might die, and what would be the point?”</p>
<p>“Then…”</p>
<p>“It amuses me,” Nicolò says. “To see you keeping your promise.”</p>
<p>“I have never understood,” Yusuf admits, in the quiet and the chill, “what you get out of it. I’ve talked to other warlocks over the years. Their patrons all want something. What do you get?”</p>
<p>“I’ve been asked for power before,” Nicolò says, slowly. “And I will be again. But you stumbled into the Feywild unwitting, and when I asked you what you wanted, you said “to help people”. I thought that surely that could not be your deepest truth; or that power, once granted, would change you. I thought it might be…instructive. To see what happened.”</p>
<p>“I do help people,” Yusuf says. “All the time. The only thing I fear is my friends dying, or that you will take my ability to help them away. Archfey being notoriously capricious.”</p>
<p>Nicolò laughs softly. “That is very funny. I assure you we have our own rules. Merely, they are not the same as yours on this plane, and so you call it caprice.”</p>
<p>He is warm against Yusuf’s side, warmer than the fire, warmer than he has any right to be. It isn’t as if he hasn’t toyed with Yusuf’s dreams over the years; that is an old game between them. But having him here in the flesh is a very different thing.</p>
<p>“You have taken up music lately,” Nicolò goes on. “Why is that?”</p>
<p>“It passes the time. And it has a magic of its own.”</p>
<p>“I am aware.” That is pointed; Yusuf wonders why. “You should play for me.”</p>
<p>“My lute is back in the village.”</p>
<p>“Then when we return.”</p>
<p>“I will play for everybody, of course.”</p>
<p>“Mmmmm,” Nicolò says, as though this is not quite the answer he wanted. He brushes his fingers across Yusuf’s cheek, and lies down again.</p>
<p>Yusuf spends the rest of his watch, until he wakes up Book, cold. But he can live with it.</p>
<p>*</p>
<p>“He’s fey,” Quỳnh says to Yusuf the next day. “Did you know that?”</p>
<p>“I knew that.”</p>
<p>“Hmmmmm,” Quỳnh says, when he doesn’t say anything else, and darts away again through the trees. She will have told Andy, of course. Yusuf wonders what is going to happen.</p>
<p>In the event, nothing involving Andy or Quỳnh or the fact that Nicolò is fey happens, because Quỳnh comes darting back a few minutes later to tell them she has discovered the monster’s lair. It is reptilian, and enormous, and has too many heads.</p>
<p>“Hydra,” Book says. “You have to kill it with fire.”</p>
<p>“Fire’s your territory,” Nile says, getting out her sword. “The rest of us are just going to stab it a lot.”</p>
<p>“Speak for yourself,” Yusuf says cheerfully – he doesn’t mind a fight – as they creep towards their ambush.</p>
<p>The ambush doesn’t go as well as might be hoped – Nile’s plate armour gives the game away, a not uncommon occurrence – but they’ve had worse fights; this time, nobody will need the assistance of a cleric, only the healing that Quỳnh and Nile’s spells and Yusuf’s hands can provide. The dead hydra reeks of charred flesh and lizard.</p>
<p>“Well, <em>that</em> won’t be eating anybody’s sheep any longer,” Andy declares, satisfied; she’s cooled down from the frenzy she sometimes goes into, during battle. Her axe is dripping and the blood goes halfway up her arm. “We should check for eggs.”</p>
<p>They don’t find eggs or signs of other beasts, but in the hydra’s lair they do find treasure, mixed with the bones of its prey.</p>
<p>“I never feel good about stealing from the dead,” Nile says. “I’ll say a prayer for them before we go.”</p>
<p>“The dead don’t need it,” Nicolò says, sounding curious. He had known how to wield the sword, and had not given himself away with any other magic; Yusuf is impressed at the control that must have taken. He has been in fights before where magic cannot aid him, and it is no easy thing – surely less so for an Archfey. “So why does it bother you?”</p>
<p>“They might have family,” Nile says. “Who do.”</p>
<p>“We’ll never identify them,” Andy says, stirring her axe-head through some of the bones. They aren’t all human – in fact, they’re mostly sheep. “Not like we have a cleric who could speak to them. We’ll be giving most of it to the village anyway.”</p>
<p>“We always end up doing that,” grumbles Book, who needs the funds for paper and ink. His magic is not the same as Yusuf’s.</p>
<p>“You’ll get your paper, don’t worry,” says Quỳnh .</p>
<p>“And this is what you do all the time,” Nicolò says to Yusuf.</p>
<p>“Not all the time,” Yusuf says. “But…this happens a lot more than you’d think, yeah.”</p>
<p>“And people call the Feywild chaotic,” he murmurs.</p>
<p>“I’ve been there; they’re not wrong.”</p>
<p>“Once, for about ten minutes.”</p>
<p>“It felt like a lot longer.” He remembers it like it was yesterday; stumbling across Nicolò, the real Nicolò, not this human visage, the complex mix of his emotions – fear and attraction and curiosity. He had known enough to know he was in danger. He hadn’t expected what had resulted.</p>
<p>Nile calls them over to help pack it up, and they go.</p>
<p>*</p>
<p>Nicolò stays with them all the way back to the village, and through the celebration that follows, which surprises Yusuf. When they get there, Andy takes the village healer, Celeste, off to give her the funds, and help her hide them.</p>
<p>“She seemed smart,” Andy had said on the way back, “and they don’t want to become a target for bandits. A little at a time, and use it to rebuild what they’ve lost; that won’t be as obvious.” What they found isn’t a lot of money by their group’s standards, but adventuring is a very expensive lifestyle. It’s all the nearly dying. What they have left for the village will help them for years.</p>
<p>The village doesn’t have an inn, exactly; just a few rooms over the hall where they meet, and where one of the older woman brews and serves ale. Yusuf slips away when the party starts to get really rowdy, and lies down on his bed – a real bed! – with a sigh. Of course he’s supposed to be sharing it with Nicolò, but he fully expects that his patron will have slipped away by now. He hasn’t seen him since…now he thinks about it, since before he had begun to play his lute. They have other musicians here, he isn’t leaving the party in the lurch by retiring.</p>
<p>“You can’t go to sleep yet,” a voice says; Yusuf sits bolt upright. It’s Nicolò, sitting on a stool in the corner, as if he had always been there. Perhaps he had. He has dropped his human guise. His fey face is not so very different from it, and yet it is; his eyes more brilliant, all the lines of his face sharper, and more dangerous. “You still owe me a song.”</p>
<p>“I played already. Did you miss it?”</p>
<p>“I’m asking for one for me,” Nicolò says, leaning his chin on his hand, and although he doesn’t say it Yusuf remembers how this works. It is the first time in all these years that he has resented it. It is the first time in all these years that Nicolò has made a direct demand, even one so politely phrased.</p>
<p>Yusuf knows, because he has spoken to other warlocks, how unusual that is.</p>
<p>“Alright,” he says, and fetches his lute. It takes a moment to tune. “Any requests?”</p>
<p>“Whatever you feel like,” Nicolò says encouragingly, so Yusuf plays him a song in his mother-tongue which is not Common, about a city of brass and its inhabitants. Nicolò reminds him of those stories, though Yusuf is old enough and experienced enough now to know that this is an echo of a different thing, a different place than Nicolò hails from. He could spin something else from the music, a little extra healing for them both...but he doesn't. He has a feeling Nicolò wouldn't like it. </p>
<p>“Have you ever been there?” Nicolò asks when he is done. “The city.”</p>
<p>“I learned the song as a legend,” Yusuf says lightly, setting his instrument aside. “But…also no. None of us have the power to step between planes. Though Quỳnh has an uncanny skill for knowing where such doorways are.”</p>
<p>“Pity,” says Nicolò. “You could come visit.”</p>
<p>“Would that be welcome?”</p>
<p>Nicolò doesn’t say anything; he stands up, and walks over to stare down at Yusuf’s lute. “Why did you take it up?”</p>
<p>“I like creating things,” Yusuf says. “And I like learning things. I didn’t realise there was any magic in it, but that doesn’t hurt either.”</p>
<p>“You have magic from me,” Nicolò says. He sits down on the bed next to Yusuf. “And that isn’t enough?”</p>
<p>“I’m not doing it to <em>spite</em> you,” Yusuf says, exasperated. “If you want something, ask for it.”</p>
<p>“That,” Nicolò says, sounding uncertain for the first time ever, “is supposed to be my line.”</p>
<p>“Well?” Yusuf folds his arms.</p>
<p>Nicolò grins. “I’m going to remind you where your real priorities should be.”</p>
<p>“Uh,” Yusuf says, which is when Nicolò kisses him.</p>
<p>Truly; this is not new. There has always been this element to his dreams of Nicolò. But dreams are hazy things, smudged by waking. They are nothing at all like Nicolò’s tongue hot in his mouth, Nicolò’s fingers holding his chin, Nicolò pulling at the laces of his trousers.</p>
<p>“Wait,” Yusuf says. Nicolò pulls back, though he does not move either of his hands. One of them is already intimately acquainted with Yusuf’s cock; he works very fast.</p>
<p>“No?” he inquires.</p>
<p>“We should lock the door,” Yusuf tells him, already breathless. Nicolò makes a <em>hmm</em> noise, and strokes him, like he’s testing something. “Seriously, there is a better than even chance Book will get drunk and stumble in here –”</p>
<p>“Nobody is going to stumble in that door, I promise you,” Nicolò says, and kisses him again, apparently considering the conversation over. Yusuf comes in his hand while Nicolò bites his lip, and then again in his mouth; every time he tries to reciprocate Nicolò laughs and does something else. He seems intent on exploring Yusuf and all his reactions. It’s hard to resist and frankly Yusuf isn’t very motivated to do so.</p>
<p>By the time Nicolò fucks him (Yusuf doesn’t know where the oil came from and isn’t going to ask), they’re approaching the dream-haze again from another direction. Yusuf is strung out by pleasure, totally unsure whether he’s going to come again or even if he can; all he’s really aware of is Nicolò hard and deep inside him, pinning his wrists to the bed with one hand and moving slowly, so slowly. What isn’t like the dream-haze is that it’s real, it’s real, there’s a slight wet spot on the bed Yusuf isn’t really paying attention to right now, and the way he’s clutching Nicolò with his legs is going to make him sore in the morning. He really doesn’t care.</p>
<p>“I want you to remember this,” Nicolò murmurs. “I want you to remember when your real power comes from.”</p>
<p>“I want you to go harder,” Yusuf says, because he can’t resist being difficult and if Nicolò minded that he’d have found some other mortal to toy with a long time ago. Nicolò just laughs and keeps doing what he’s doing, slow and deep, Yusuf clenching around him, nailing Yusuf where it counts with inhuman precision, until Yusuf comes so hard and so sweetly his eyes are wet when the tide of it goes back out.</p>
<p>“There we go,” says Nicolò, and does exactly what Yusuf asked earlier. Yusuf has just enough coherency left to note with interest that Archfey or no, he shudders and closes his eyes the way any other man might. In the light of the single candle in the room, he could be just an elf. But then his eyes open, and he’s not. Yusuf feels it, tingling down to his fingers and toes. There’s some magic in this and he doesn’t know what; not the everyday magic of bedding someone, either.</p>
<p>“There we go,” he says again, more quietly, and when he kisses Yusuf, Yusuf isn’t entirely sure what it means.</p>
<p>*</p>
<p>Nicolò isn’t there in the morning. Yusuf wasn’t really expecting that. The damp spot and the soreness in his muscles that doesn’t come from yesterday’s fight are still there, though, so last night was a physical reality and not a dream. Yusuf had, at one or two points, wondered.</p>
<p>He finds his companions downstairs. They look less worse for wear than Yusuf was expecting, except for Book, but that’s normal, unfortunately.</p>
<p>“Where’s your friend?” Nile asks.</p>
<p>“Gone,” Yusuf says.</p>
<p>“Who was he really?” Andy wants to know. “He had power that he wasn’t using. Appearing in the forest like that – we’re not idiots.”</p>
<p>“Have I ever explained,” Yusuf says, scratching the back of his head, “how I do magic?”</p>
<p>“Not really,” says Book. “I know it’s not the same way I do, even though you have a spellbook. You said once that you just wake up and know spells.” He scowled. “That seems so unfairly convenient.”</p>
<p>“I can’t do half the things that you can,” Yusuf says. “But yes. The power is granted to me. Now you know who grants it.” It seems easier to say now Nicolò isn’t here. “And speaking of…” He didn’t have the knowledge until he knew it; but it’s there, waiting for him. “If we wanted to go back to the cave. The ones with whole skulls? I could speak to them, now. It’s come to me overnight.”</p>
<p>“See?” Book grouses. “Completely unfair. ‘It just came to me’. Ugh.”</p>
<p>“What, really?” says Quỳnh . “<em>Him</em>? I knew he was fey, but…”</p>
<p>“What you saw wasn’t all there is.” Yusuf wiggles his fingers. “You know what I can do, in terms of illusions.”</p>
<p>“And him nailing you through the bed last night, was that part of the whole deal? Helped you get that new spell?” Andy asks, too sweetly. The walls of this building are <em>not</em> that thick, Yusuf knows. He tries not to go red, but it’s not really under his control. Book throws back his head and laughs.</p>
<p>“No,” Yusuf says, although…actually…he’s not totally sure about that. Nile looks vaguely relieved. She’s a paladin, not a prude, but she still has some views about this sort of thing.</p>
<p>“Are we going to see him again, Yusuf?” Andy asks, cutting through Book’s amusement. “Shush, Sébastien.”</p>
<p>“Maybe,” Yusuf says, his aches feeling like a promise. “Maybe. You know what? I think so.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Written for <a href="https://theoldguardkinkmeme.dreamwidth.org/5552.html?thread=1866416#cmt1866416">this kink meme prompt</a>:</p>
<p>
  <em>So it's common in a lot of RPGs that warlocks gain their power from an outside source (basically a magical sugar daddy). It can be an elemental creature, a fiendish creature, a divine being, whatever you want... There's sometimes a price, sometimes it's an equal exchange.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Joe is a warlock and does his very best to use his powers for good. Nicky is his patron.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Sometimes when Joe needs some good go-go juice the best way to get the power is right from the tap. And that means fucking.</em>
</p>
<p>Human Paladin Nile and Aasimar Joe were inspired by <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26335372">this most excellent Old Guard-in-Exandria fic</a>. </p>
<p>For those who are curious, the rundown of everybody’s D&amp;D race/class in this fic is:<br/>Joe: Aasimar Warlock (Pact of the Tome, Archfey Patron)/Bard (no College yet)<br/>Nile: Human Paladin (Oath of the Ancients)<br/>Quỳnh: Wood Elf Ranger (Horizon Walker)<br/>Andy: High Elf Barbarian (Path of the Ancestral Guardians)<br/>Booker: Human Wizard (School of Evocation)</p>
<p>A PHB-standard Hydra would be an easy encounter for a party of this size; they’re all about level 10. Joe gets his 9th Warlock level during this story (~eyebrow wiggle~) and gains the eldritch invocation Whispers of the Grave, which allows him to cast Speak with Dead at will. Or, uh, the in-story equivalent of doing that.  </p>
<p>I forgot while writing this that Leomund’s Tiny Hut keeps the temperature pleasant inside: my apologies. Let’s pretend this is an off-brand version of the spell.</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>